Author: Hal Levin

Members of The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) do a lot of investigations of “problem buildings.” Mold has been a hot topic for more than a decade due to numerous lawsuits brought by occupants, tenants, and others against building owners. Large settlements have occurred, and famous plaintiffs and lawyers (Erin Brokavich) have been involved. Whole …

The Health in Buildings Roundtable will meet Tuesday, April 23rd from 8 to 4:30 at the Natcher Center on the NIH campus in Bethesda. The line-up includes a diverse set of speakers and topics. We saw nothing in the program posted on line mentioning microbial ecology, microbiology, or microbes, but the program might be of …

The University of Chicago has just opened a massive new hospital on the university campus. Jack Gilbert is PI on a study of the evolution of the hospital microbiome funded by the Sloan Foundation. The evolution of the microbiomes in a set of hospital rooms is being studied continuously beginning before the hospital accepted the …

Lee Ann Kahlor and her team at the University of Texas Interviewed nearly fourscore U.S. researchers in academia, government, defense and private industry to try to understand researchers’ perceptions of the challenges and opportunities for science communication to a wider audience (lay and decision makers). Here is what Dr. Kahlor said about the work: “Two …

Just out in today’s edition of PLoS Medicine: Adapting Standards: Ethical Oversight of Participant-Led Health Research. The article raises questions (in my mind) about the ethics related to human genome sequencing projects. We ask, what is “informed consent” when you have your genome sequence published? What about your children’s interests, your siblings’, your descendants’ and …

If you want to watch an entertaining video introduction to why the microbiology of the built environment is really important to you (and all of us), you must watch this video — Meet your microbes. The other day, I asked Jonathan Eisen why his Ted Talk was not linked on the microbe.net web site and …

Many reliable and credible scientific journals related to building science most relevant to the microbiology of the built environment are listed here. These are selected based on our personal experience and judgment and do not constitute a comprehensive or definitive list. Indoor Air — International Journal of Indoor Environment and Health Indoor Air provides a …

Many recent microbe.net post links to “blog of the day” provide diverse, interesting reading related to microbial ecology. To identify some worthwhile “building science” blogs, we contacted some of the most knowledgeable building scientists we know. The results suggest some observations comparing building science and microbial ecology. Both domains (“fields,” “disciplines”) are highly diversified, ranging …

[edited from the ASHRAE press release] Changes to clarify requirements in a proposed standard are open for public comment. The proposed ASHRAE standard, 188P, Prevention of Legionellosis Associated with Building Water Systems, specifies what must be done to control the spread of legionellosis. The standard helps facility managers/owners understand how to apply the available information …

Thursday January 10 at 10:06 am on the east coast, the Diane Rehm Show will focus on the flu. You can read the advance description at http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-01-10/battle-against-flu. To find your local station, if you don’t already know it, go to www.npr.org. Most local stations make their broadcasts available on their web sites. “This year’s flu …

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